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of a straight-talking gaucho from Brazil's south-
ern plains. "I understood that we had to have a
plan, not a bunch of opinions," says Beltrame.
" e solution, without any doubt whatsoever, is
what I am doing."
In other slums now occupied by police, life
has improved. Children are playing again in
the streets. Friends will come for a visit. Yet
people are still suspicious. One of Fabio's fel-
low preachers, Sérgio Souza de Andrade, led
me to the church basement to explain. "People
don't want to say so, but our greatest fear is that
tomorrow will be like yesterday," he says. "What
will happen when the police leave?"
Consider Cantagalo, an amphitheater-shaped
favela with sweeping views of Rio, where drug
tra ckers made the rules for roughly 35 years.
eir spray-painted slogans, on building walls
now covered with less violent gra ti by local
artists, announced: "We are the crazies" or "Psy-
chos are born here." Since police took over in
December 2009, gang members have no longer
been carrying unconcealed weapons. But they
may not all have le either. " ey're up there
somewhere," says Luiz Bezerra do Nascimento,
the community association president, waving a
hand toward the top of the hill. Everyone is still
sorting out the new roles. "We had to respect
them before because they were the authority.
Now I tell them, 'You don't rule here anymore.
e police do.' "
e police are more welcome, if not beloved,
in Cantagalo these days, partly because of a big
publicity e ort. It's a strategy as old as military
A drug dealer holding bags of cocaine worth a few dollars apiece is one of a disappearing breed
in Vidigal. Police officers who now occupy the favela are working to eradicate all such activity.